


Keith is Not Allergic to Peanuts

by pugglemuggle



Series: Klance Valentine's Collection - 2017 [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drinking, Dumb boys being dumb, Fake Dating, I can't believe I've managed to incorporate M&Ms as a plot point, M&M's, M&M's March Madness, M/M, Meet-Awkward, Oh No He's Hot, at least I didn't write about anthropomorphic M&Ms this year, frat party, or meet cute depending on your perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 04:46:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14157069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pugglemuggle/pseuds/pugglemuggle
Summary: When Lance turned around he came face to face with the most gorgeous guy he’d ever seen, who was staring at him wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights with his hand frozen in front of his mouth, stuffing his face with peanut M&M's.“Um...” Lance said.The hot M&M's guy said nothing for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze, swallowed, and said, like an unfaithful love interest from a crappy telenovela, “I can explain.”(Or, Keith and Lance meet while hiding in the bathroom at a frat party. Bad decisions are made.)





	Keith is Not Allergic to Peanuts

**Author's Note:**

> This was written partially for March Madness, partially for my Klance Valentine's Challenge from last year, and partially because of this Tumblr post, which inspired the plot of the fic. 
> 
> I might add more to this fic bc I'm trash for college AUs, but we'll see!
> 
> Enjoy...?
> 
> EDIT: Lol guess who forgot to link the tumblr post I was talking about?? Hahhh. Here it is: [Peanut M&M Story](http://rue-by-another-name.tumblr.com/post/171604911476/the-biggest-lie-i-ever-told-how-my-husband-came).

This was not how Lance thought his night would go.

Lance was just looking for somewhere to hide. It was Zeta-Alpha-Zeta’s annual Valentine’s Day Bash, and his ex-girlfriend just walked in with a gorgeous dude on her arm. Which, you know…didn’t exactly make him feel warm and fuzzy. Lance was over Jenny, but being replaced by a much hotter guy only a week after the breakup was not a confidence booster. Plus, he’d kind of expected her to show up alone. It was like some kind of dumb situation straight out of a made-for-TV teen drama, and Lance was not enjoying it.

So yeah, he was trying to hide. At a giant frat party. From his ex-girlfriend. Because he was alone and she very clearly was not, and he may have already been a few beers in and thus incapable of coming up with any witty ways to convince her he was much better off than he actually was.

Lance yanked open the door to the bathroom, jumped inside, and shut the door behind him. He let out a sigh. Finally, he was alone.

Or not.

When he turned around he came face to face with the most gorgeous guy he’d ever seen, who was staring at him wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights with his hand frozen in front of his mouth, stuffing his face with peanut M&Ms in front of the sink.

“Um...” Lance said.

The hot M&Ms guy said nothing for a moment. Then he dropped his gaze, swallowed, and said, like an unfaithful love interest from a crappy telenovela, “I can explain.”

Lance wasn’t really sure this guy owed him an explanation, since Lance was the one who barged in on him in the bathroom, but Lance was curious, and nosy, and buzzed, and—like he previously mentioned—this guy was fucking hot. Sue Lance if he didn’t stop him from telling his life story.

“Um. So...” the M&Ms guy said, running his hand through his black hair. It looked soft. “There’s a bowl of peanut M&Ms in the entry way.”

“Right,” Lance nodded.

“My friends all think I’m allergic to peanuts.”

“Okay.”

“But I’m not. I just don’t like peanut butter.”

“...Okay.”

“I just got tired of people saying, ‘Oh, Keith! Why don’t you like peanut butter? It’s the best!’“

“It is the best,” Lance felt the need to point out. Also, the guy’s name was Keith. Lance tucked that little fact away for later.

“See?” said the peanut man—Keith. He spread his arms out wide, like an overzealous lawyer in a courtroom drama. Maybe Lance watched too many TV dramas. “Can’t I just not like peanut butter without being labeled as some kind of alien?”

“I see your point,” Lance agreed. “So, you hate peanut butter. You tell everyone you’re allergic. You... come to the bathroom to secretly stuff your face with peanut M&Ms when no one’s looking?”

“Um,” Keith said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”

In a weird, convoluted way, it made sense. Lance nodded, then noticed the red solo cup sitting on the counter next to the sink. “Are you sober right now?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh. Cool,” Lance said. He leaned his back against the bathroom door and slid down to sit on the nasty-looking tiles of the frat house bathroom. “Neither am I.”

“Ah,” Keith nodded. There was a beat, and then his eyes widened a little. “Are you here to.... Do you need to use...?” Keith gestured at the toilet.

“What? Oh, no. Um. No.”

“Then why are you...?”

“I’m hiding. Like you.”

“Oh.”

They shared a moment of awkward silence. Keith plopped down opposite him and asked, “So, why are you hiding?”

There it was. The dreaded question. Lance was expecting it, and he probably owed Keith an answer after Keith just confessed about his whole awkward fake peanut allergy. Plus, if Lance was being honest with himself, he could use a good vent, and this guy was actually _asking_ for it....

Fuck, why not spill his guts to a hot guy he just met in the bathroom of a frat house? What did he have to lose?

Lance took a deep breath, chugged a long drink from his solo cup, and got started.

“So. My girlfriend broke up with me last week. ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ kind of thing. It was rough, but I knew it was coming. And now she’s here with this super, _super_ hot dude. Like, holy Jesus, our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name, _super fucking hot_ , et cetera.” Lance took a breath; he was getting side-tracked. “So, the point is... I came here alone. I didn’t want her to see that.”

Keith blinked. “She broke up with you a week before Valentine’s Day?”

Lance shrugged. “Well. Yeah.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. But, you know. I should have expected it. She was out of my league anyway, I guess.”

Keith frowned at him, like he’d just been given a true or false problem and ended up with an answer of negative two. Then he shook his head and got to his feet. “You should make her jealous.”

“What?” Lance scrambled to his feet after him. “Why? I don’t want to get her back or anything.”

“But she was a jerk,” Keith said simply. “Don’t you want to show her how much better off you are without her?”

And the thing was, Lance knew what a bad idea it was to try to make an ex jealous. It was dumb, and petty, and pointless, but—damn. Lance really did want to try. He was just drunk and self-pitying enough that Keith’s idea actually sounded pretty good.

“Okay. Okay, fine,” Lance relented. “What should I do?”

“Um. Well,” Keith fiddled with the bottom of his shirt, but he looked Lance in the eye when he said, “I could pretend to be your date.”

This was not how Lance thought his night would go.

 “You’d do that?” Lance managed to say after a slightly too-long beat of silence. Lance wasn’t sure what the rules on fake boyfriends were, but he was pretty sure most people didn’t make offers like that to random strangers in bathrooms. “Um. I mean, are you—are you sure? You just met me.”

Keith shrugged. “You already know that I’m not actually allergic to peanuts. Only three people in the world know that. If you don’t tell anyone about the peanuts, I’ll help you get back at your ex-girlfriend. Deal?”

Keith stuck out his hand, and after only a moment of hesitation, Lance shook it. “Deal,” he said. “And, um. I’m Lance, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” Keith said. “I’m Keith.”

“I know. You already said.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. It’s fine, though. It’s a nice name.”

“It is?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” Keith said, blinking and staring at him in a way that was sort of adorable. Was it really a good idea for Lance to get a fake boyfriend who was this hot? Probably not.

Too late now, though.

“You ready?” Lance asked, setting his hand on the doorknob. Keith nodded. “Alright, then. Let’s do this.”

He opened the door, and the loud music crescendoed to meet them. Party lights spun across the walls, voices laughed over the music, and bodies danced in time to the beat. Keith reached forward to take his hand, and Lance let their fingers intertwine, trying and failing to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat at the feeling of Keith’s soft hand in his own. Lane took a breath. This was fine. He would be fine. With that, they stepped back into the party.

The night was still young. Who knew what might happen?

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to be notified if/when I write more for this AU, feel free to subscribe! :)


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